It broke my heart': Meryl Streep fights back tears as she rips into 'bully' Donald Trump and his impersonation of a disabled person in speech that brings stunned Golden Globes audience to its feet

• Meryl Streep publicly slammed Donald Trump in her Golden Globes speech 
• She was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille lifetime achievement award on Sunday
• She took aim at Trump for mocking disabled reporter during election campaign
• Streep said publicly humiliating people made it okay for others to do the same
• The star also called for the press to stand up to the president-elect going forward
• Trump dismissed Streep as a 'Hillary lover' following the award ceremony 

Meryl Streep used her Golden Globes acceptance speech to publicly slam president-elect Donald Trump as she alluded to racism and disrespect in front of a room of visibly stunned stars.

The Cecil B. DeMille honoree took aim at Trump, without mentioning him by name, by calling the moment the president-elect mocked a disabled reporter the most stunning performance of the year.

'There was nothing good about it, but it did its job,' Streep said in the powerful speech that left many teary-eyed.

'It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I still can't get it out my head because it wasn't in a movie, it was in real life. 

'It was that moment when a person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter - someone he outranked in privilege, in power and in the capacity to fight back. 

That instinct to humiliate, when it's modeled by someone in a public platform, it filters down into everyone's life because it gives permission for others to do the same. 

'Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.'

Trump came under fire in 2015 for mocking New York Times investigative reporter Serge Kovaleski by impersonating the journalist's physical handicap. It was an incident replayed frequently in campaign advertising. 

Streep, who spoke at the Democratic National Convention, also called for the press to stand up to Trump and hold him to account going forward. 

Trump dismissed Streep as a 'Hillary lover' following the awards ceremony, the New York Times reports. 

While Trump said he had not seen Streep's speech or the Golden Globes, he said he was 'not surprised' that he was under attack by 'liberal movie people'.

The president-elect said: 'I was never mocking anyone. I was calling into question a reporter who had gotten nervous because he had changed his story.

'People keep saying I intended to mock the reporter’s disability, as if Meryl Streep and others could read my mind, and I did no such thing.'

He added: 'And remember, Meryl Streep introduced Hillary Clinton at her convention, and a lot of these people supported Hillary.' 

In her speech, which earned a standing ovation from the stunned audience, Streep noted that 'Hollywood' was a reviled place.

She spoke about how the Hollywood Foreign Press and the actors present were part of 'the most vilified segments in American society right now' - Hollywood, foreigners and the press.

'But who are we, and what is Hollywood anyway? It's just a bunch of people from other places,' Streep said as she touched on her New Jersey upbringing.  

She mentioned nominees seated in the room by name and recalled details of their cultural backgrounds to shine a light on Hollywood's multicultural makeup and to build context for the rest of her speech.

'Viola (Davis) was born in a sharecroppers cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida, raised by a single mom in Brooklyn,' she said. 

'Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenzia, Italy, and Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem.

'Where are their birth certificates?' she asked.

'The beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and was raised in Ireland and she's here nominated for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. 

'Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people is Canadian. Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here playing an Indian, raised in Tasmania.

'Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners and if you kick them all out, you'll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts,' Streep said to loud applause.